R.I.P. DAD...

 "CONSISTENCY IS CONTRARY TO NATURE,CONTRARY TO LIFE. THE ONLY COMPLETELY CONSISTENT PEOPLE ARE DEAD."-Aldous Huxley
 BTW B.F.Skinner noted in WWIII that Intermittent Reinforcement was the strongest, apparently all species hold on to that kernel of hope...


Aloha 2U,
 i am posting this for the day my Dad was born.
27 AUGUST 1917. i have No Memory of him or my Mom EVER celebrating his birthday...SIGH.
there were teasrs when i first read this aloud in sep 1980, mine and the audiences.


CHARLEY BURNETT STONE
(B.27 aug 1917  D.17 sept1956)

father,
daddy,
papa,
dad..

      what can i say?
you died too soon/too late,
i watched too young to
understand
how The War,alcohol and racism
broke you.

you enlisted tp
serve your country,
and they gave you a spoon,
black blood wasn't good enough
or maybe they just didn't
want you to develop
a talent
for killing white men.

too soon/too late
the hero-coward-loser
you were a cook
for democracy.
somehow it broke you,
hhow you never said,
you were too busy
crawling into a bottle
until it killed you.
pickled in despair,
your friends and wife
called you
"STONE"
and you tried to be
and failed.

          failed?
you taught me
about being a man.,
which admitttedly
isn't much.,
taught me and died...
too soon/too late.
you taught me
how to
          love
         suffer
        cook
        play
        and despair.
frail
5'8"165 lbs
all you ever
wanted to be
was BIG
and happy
             like your father,
            BIG JOHN STONE
funny, i first met him
at your funeral
and i could see how
you were haunted by him
even in life
by his huge shadow.
6'6"  @300 lbs
of bronze bald roaring mirth
-a John Henry myth incarnate,
live from the red dirt
North Carolina backwoods.
beside him your stepmother
takes up no room at all
pity..

i have his size
like Falstaff
i can roar with the best
of them
and lie with the worst
of them.
yes,i have
his girth but
i hacve your despair
too soon/too late.

sometimes
i wish you were
still around,
selfishly
so i could have you
be proud of me,
maybe help me
unwrinkle parts of
my life asooner or
explain your pitfalls
before i fell into
them., not that
i would've listened
but still
it would be nice.

i have dared much
and i have failed often
but i have survived
and learned and grown,
without  crawling
into bottles
looking for meaning.
i have finally
learned to accept
myself
and perhaps
i could have helped?

despair.
i am at home there
i haved mined this vein
so relentlessly that
it has played out
leaving me nothing
but
       sunlight,
but i had an edge
which you gave me
with such little time
as you could give
crumbling like
old photographs
brittle to the touch.
          i can count my memories of you
          on one hand tho surely there
           must've been more..surely..
on a bench in winter
in tjhe Big Park
by the swings,watching
you tie my shoe,
i tie them upside down
to this day
from watching you.
            watching you
            cook breakfast and dinner
            and getting the papers
            on Sunday mornings
           -when you were home-
            long before Mom got up.
listening to you both
fight,
as i shivered
helplessly
under the blankets,
pretending to be asleep...

then as a suddenly
adult-child, finding you
comatose on the toilet..

too soon/too late
regrets too often

yes
you died a poet's death
          catching pneumonia

lying drunk in a gutter
          achieving a long arduous recovery
only to snatch defeat
           from the jaws of victory
with sickle cell complications
           and a fatal relapse.

the US Army
takes care of its own...
           so they buried you.
you wanted to be cremated
your ashes scattered to
the winds, so that
every time my Mom got
a cinder in her eye
             she'd think of you...

sometimes you don't need cinders...0
             they buried you
miles away from
Harlem,
in a military cemetary
which city bus goes to anymore,

thus we've neglected your grave
and your memory
only to be jogged even now
by old friends/army buddies who
drop by unexpectedly
looking for you,
               only to be stunned speechless
that you too are mortal
too soon/too late.

sometimes i sleep
under a wrinkled flag
larger enough to cover
               a coffin,
with it is the
Mother Lode of despair defanged;
i no longer fear DEATH
or LIFE...

too soon/too late/too bad
             i hope you understand now
             and can be proud of me.


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COME DANCE WITH ME ...aug 74             (yes this one rhymes & is semi biographical)

climbed the dirty sunlit ladder to the attic yesterday,
re-shuffled some od things i will never throw away,
dusty teddy bears, a bugle and a cap pistol or two
bittersweet broken boxes ambered by dew.
full of tarnished tin soldiers and rainy day parades
memories mausoleum of parental charades,
behind barricades of birthday cake and a choirbook
                                                                        full of lies,
such gentle loving cruelty-their hypocrisy in disguise..
a child's carefree horrors of bogeymen in the dark,
be Good or be Damned and spankings in the park.
praying for Salvation-:if I should die before i wake,
I p[ray Baby Jesus, my soul to take."
its no wonder nightmares made my bed their stable,
bedwetter,unruly 'KEEP YOUR ELBOWS OFF THE TABLE!"
'Enjoy yourself but don't get Dirty!" and other horrid paradoxes,
impossible rules for children indeed, they should've birthed foxes,
with catheter cocoons and  baby silver spoons aglow,
quick slaps and quicker straps as the ultimate lust placebo
loving and hating them, both frustrated at all changes
no wonder my tantrums,. ulcers and long poisoned glances,
shut up in closets,sent to bed without supper,
the gibbet for him and barb wire to whup her.

Farewell to yesterdays nursery-rhyme slave,
Come,dance with me on my pony's grave!



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GOODBYE             sept 73 for JoAnn

i could say
            i never loved you
but it would hurt,
i could say i never shared the
hope in your eyes.
no,all i will say is that
i'm leaving..
that is enough,
              i stand by the door
you are behind me
barefoot and naked in my old shirt
              'can we talk about it?'
NO.
                'did i do something Wrong?'
NO
                   'please please.tell me, i've got to know...'
NO,it's not you...
                   'but why then?'
You wouldn't understand.
                
'i'll try...'
NO.
              the cats watch from your ankles
you are cryig now.
the door is open...
              "Sorry, i'm sorry..'
i turn
               "sorry you couldn't learn to love me too."

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i think that' enuff for now, SIGH & CRY & CRY...

namaste everyone
mega





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